


This Christmas

by PiningTsukkiEnthusiast



Series: Five Days of Ficmas [5]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Didn't Know They Were Dating, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Dates, Fluff and Humor, Like, M/M, Mild Angst, Miscommunication, Office Party, Romantic Comedy, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, blink and you'll miss it angst, minor manga spoilers?, they cute they cute
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22089514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PiningTsukkiEnthusiast/pseuds/PiningTsukkiEnthusiast
Summary: Akiteru was nervous. Or, not nervous, but he was uncertain. Like, really uncertain. Like, only the kind of uncertain you get when you were rivals in high school who stopped talking after graduation but then you met again when your little brother went to Nationals and after that reunion started to become friends and now you maybe have a crush on this former rival current friend but there’s no way you can tell him.Except he was going to tell him.
Relationships: Haiba Alisa/Tanaka Saeko, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Tsukishima Akiteru/Udai Tenma
Series: Five Days of Ficmas [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589929
Comments: 5
Kudos: 50





	This Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> We love a classic miscommunication ;)
> 
> These dorks are so fluffy and cute and I don't write them enough as a main pairing, really. So, new years resolution to do better with that!

Akiteru was nervous. Or, not nervous, but he was uncertain. Like, really uncertain. Like, only the kind of uncertain you get when you were rivals in high school who stopped talking after graduation but then you met again when your little brother went to Nationals and after that reunion started to become friends and now you maybe have a crush on this former rival current friend but there’s no way you can tell him.

Except he was going to tell him.

Okay, he should back up a little.

Akiteru’s work threw an office Christmas party every year on Christmas Eve. Up to this year, Akiteru had always asked Saeko to go with him. See, there was this… _thing_. Not only did every employee get a plus one, but they _had_ to bring a date. Why? Because it was a weird competition. He didn’t get it.

Whoever didn’t bring a date got tasked with cleaning up after the office party, which no one wanted to do. If everyone brought a date – even though that had yet to happen – then the managers would be the ones to work together to do it. The whole point was really to give the janitorial staff a break for the holidays, but it still seemed…a little high pressure.

In any case, Akiteru always brought Saeko, because he was gay, and she was uninterested, so it was just a favor to a friend. But this year, Saeko had to go to her girlfriend’s office party, so she couldn’t go to Akiteru’s as well. Which meant he needed a plan b.

Enter Udai Tenma, or said former-rival, current-friend, maybe-crush of Akiteru. AKA, Akiteru’s plan b.

Except it was more than that, because for once, Akiteru was hoping to take a _date_ -date to the party. And since he was already meeting Tenma for coffee that Saturday, he figured that would be a great chance to ask.

When he arrived at the café, he wasn’t expecting to see Tenma already waiting for him, at their usual table, both of their drinks ordered. It made Akiteru warm and a little embarrassed in ways he didn’t think he’d felt since his high school crushes on upperclassmen.

“Hey, Akiteru!” Tenma greeted, standing to welcome Akiteru with a hug.

“Hi,” Akiteru replied, voice even enough that he was pretty sure his nerves weren’t conveyed. “How are you?”

“Exhausted from work,” Tenma laughed, sitting back down. “But I’m happy it’s nearly Christmas. How are you?”

“I’m good,” Akiteru said, hoping it sounded like the truth. You know, because it _was_. He was just _also_ incredibly nervous.

“How’s Christmas shopping going?” Tenma asked knowingly.

Akiteru groaned. “I’ve been online shopping for a week, and I still have no ideas for Kei. I swear, he just gets harder to shop for every year.”

“That’s because you’re still shopping for him as an eight-year-old, instead of a twenty-two-year-old,” Tenma teased. “And when you realize it, you have to scrap all your progress.”

“That’s– shut up.” Akiteru pouted to hide a laugh. “It’d be easier if I could just wrap up Tadashi for him every year, I think.”

Tenma hummed thoughtfully, and then his eyes lit up. “You know, that just might work. Then Tadashi’s off the hook for a gift too.”

Akiteru made no attempt to hide his laughter this time. “Yeah, I’m _sure_ Kei wouldn’t be able to find a way to complain about _that_.”

“Finding things to complain about must be genetic,” Tenma said, hiding a smirk behind his coffee cup.

Akiteru gasped, scandalized. “I would never.”

“Sure,” Tenma laughed. He set his mug back down, eyeing Akiteru curiously. “Has it gotten colder outside since I got here a few minutes ago?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just, your face has been red since you got here. Cold?”

Akiteru felt his face heat up with embarrassment, but he forced a wobbly smile. “Uh, yeah.”

It didn’t take a genius to see that Tenma didn’t quite believe him.

“Hm, well, hopefully your coffee warms you up!”

Tenma didn’t want to say Akiteru was acting _weird_ , because that wasn’t quite it. Maybe a bit out of character, but that didn’t mean anything, necessarily. Still, as a friend, Tenma was concerned. Just as a friend. The way friends do. And also a little bit the way someone who liked his friend does. Maybe.

Things had been going great in the past six years since he and Akiteru got back in touch, but the last year especially had been…something! Tenma was done with his masters degree, so he had a little more spare time – or, more accurately, he had more regularly scheduled spare time.

So, every week, he was able to have little coffee meetups with Akiteru and they could talk. And they’d done that pretty consistently since February. Now, in early December, it was a habit. With that habit, that familiarity, came something…else. It blossomed slowly, unnoticed, until one day, Akiteru couldn’t make coffee because he was sick, and Tenma felt lost without their routine.

Naturally, he went to the corner store for cold medicine, tea, and soup, and took care of Akiteru. That was when Tenma realized that not only did he have a crush, but there was a chance he was head-over-heels for Akiteru. Oops.

This was not helped by the fact that he’d had a crush on Akiteru in high school, too. But that was a whole different ballgame. They were rivals, not friends. It would’ve been too difficult to make a move. Now, it was difficult because they _were_ friends.

Jeez. Feelings were sort of stupid like that.

Which brought them to today, sitting for coffee and catching up, while Tenma sensed that Akiteru had something to say that he was avoiding. What is was about or why he was avoiding it, Tenma didn’t know. His anxiety had a few suggestions ( _he knows how I feel, he wants to stop being friends, he still wants to be friends but maybe we should hang out less_ ), but he elected to ignore that.

“Akiteru, are you alright?” Tenma finally asked, leaning across the table to look at his friend more directly.

Akiteru flushed red. “I…okay, this is sort of lame and embarrassing, but I have something to ask you.”

“What is it?” Tenma’s mind now suggested many things that gave him hope.

“Well, my office has this Christmas party every year,” Akiteru began, “and usually I just take Saeko as my plus one and she pretends to be my girlfriend, but this year she can’t do that because it’s the same day as Alisa-san’s office party.”

Tenma nodded, his hopes slipping away.

“And…well, if you’re not busy, I’d um, really like if maybe, you came with me?” Akiteru said, a wobbly smile on his face.

Tenma’s heart sank, but he nodded anyways. “Of course I’ll go.”

Akiteru’s smile brightened. “Thank you so much, Tenma!”

They continued talking about life, but Tenma’s mind was on a whole other plane. What would it mean, pretending to be Akiteru’s boyfriend for the party? Were they going to hold hands? What if people asked how they got together? What if people were angry that Akiteru brought another man?

“Tenma, are you alright?” Akiteru asked, breaking his train of thought. “You look a little pale.”

“I’m fine!” Tenma lied. “I think I’m just a little warm.” He slid out of his coat, hoping that seemed passable.

“Alright. I can take you home if you’re not well,” Akiteru added. “It would only be fair to take care of you and repay the favor from when you took care of me.”

Tenma shook his head. “I’m really okay! Thank you, though.”

From: Akiteru

To: Saeko

5:06 p.m.

_He said yes!!!_ _☆_ _*:._ _｡_ _.o(_ _≧▽≦_ _)o._ _｡_ _.:*_ _☆_

To: Akiteru

From: Saeko

5:07 p.m.

_Hell yeah! Get that ass!!_ _☆⌒_ _(_ _ゝ。_ _∂)_

From: Tenma

To: Alisa

5:06 p.m.

_Do u think it’s a bad idea to be the fake date to a guy who you mayb like? (-_-;)_ _・・・_

To: Tenma

From: Alisa

5:07 p.m.

_Tenmaaaaaa have you ever seen a romcom???? obviously it’s a bad idea!!! (_ _ᗒᗣᗕ_ _)՞_

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [Twitter](https://www.twitter.com/lovingyachi) and scream with me about Haikyuu!! and other shit


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